M.I.A documentary director leaks own teaser, publicly quits the project thereafter

An unauthorised clip to an upcoming documentary film based on political-popstar M.I.A was leaked online over the weekend. That tends to happen a lot, sure, but this time it was leaked by its very own director.

Filmmaker Steve Loveridge took to Youtube to post a snippet from the ongoing project last night, one that features the likes of Kanye West, Spike Jonze, XL Recordings’ Richard Russell and more.

The now deleted video came with the caption from Loveridge: “This was a teaser from 2012 to show Interscope what the film would feel like. Reblog the shit out of this and maybe they’ll wake up…” M.I.A also stressed her annoyance on Twitter, saying that she was thinking of launching a Kickstarter for the project.

Unsurprisingly, the singer’s label Roc Nation didn’t seem to take well to the leak. A publicist contacted the seemingly disgruntled Loveridge later that evening in a series of emails that the director himself, again, later leaked online.

“I know how frustrated you must be with the whole subject, but I promise we’ve been having ongoing conversations, internally, trying to get legal stuff and funding resolved,” one part of the email read, before the Roc PR assured Loveridge it would all be done by the release of MATANGI, the musician’s long-expected upcoming album.

This wasn’t enough for Loveridge, however, with him responding in return: “I couldn’t give a flying fuck. Count me out. Would rather die than work on this,” before the stinger: “Nothing personal :)”.

MATANGI is expected for release later in the year. You can read the full email exchange from Loveridge beneath:

[via FACT]